No Cleansing

By what wistful welling
do these tears dwell?

In rivers and pools,

in swells,

cascading, imperiled
are the witless homes
of hopeful imagination.

Overwhelmed

by the raging slide
of mud and ire
that pours down
the hillside…

these windows
and doors explode
to the out,
from the inside,

and there is no cleansing.

In the wake
of such a storm,
we realize
that the rain itself
was filthy.

Mixed with the dirt inside,

circular motion
will never subside
and we are ‘ever
swept, swaying,
unlike the tide
that purifies
and repeats.

In our own flood,
we are washed away
by this endless trying

(what is my breakwater?)

and the ruinous repetition

of life’s repeating rhyme.

© CG Tenpenny, 2022.